Food & Travel...

Apparently Mickey is in on the GM (genetically modified) foods game, and not for the better. Now, no one really goes to DisneyWorld for an education, but Ali, a blogger at The Ethicurean, recently found that the U.S. Farm Bureau exhibit at Epcot Center (the most boring of all Disney’s parks) is more than benign children’s entertainment. The Great American Farm exhibit (once sponsored by Monsanto) is less about how Old MacDonald grows his foods on sustainable rolling acres, and more about biotechnology, something that, according to the exhibit “helps us to make seeds with special qualities. These can include enhanced pest resistance, higher yields and improved nutritional quality.” A narrator tells visitors that “weeds are bad because they block sun, steal nutrients, and choke the corn plant’s growth.” The only way to deal with weeds? Modify the DNA of the corn plant so that it can tolerate herbicides that kill the weeds without killing the corn. The Disney exhibit raises more questions than it answers (how did humans feed themselves before GM corn, when weeds were killing all the real corn plants?). Not the least of which are those about the health risks of eating GM plants or the environmental impact. But, as Ali identifies, the larger question is: why is Disney teaching us about our food at all? Read the April 7 blog post: Postcard from Orlando II: Look Closer ... At the Farm Bureau to learn more about the U.S. Farm Bureau and see photos of the exhibit. Photo credit: http://www.omniluxe.net/wyw/kk.htm a brochure from a 1960s Epcot exhibit about food.